Arthur on Avalon
by RedMaskWho
Summary: So, what's happening here? Arthur basically spends 2000 years on Avalon, just floating around, being super creeped out by the whole situation and missing Merlin, while said Warlock wanders the earth, gets multiple college degrees, almost becomes president once, stops smiling forever and builds himself a little cottage by a very particular lake. Might not really turn out like that..


Time passes differently on Avalon.

It might be because there is no day and night cycle, no sun and moon to tell me how many days have passed by, just the never ending white fog. It might be because there were no things or people, nothing that could give me a sense of time and location.

Or it might be because I'm dead.

The last thing I remember of my human life is a very unlikely combination of intense pain and all-embracing peace and closure. Everything that came before that, everything I had experienced and lived through, has shrunken into a blurry and distant memory, but this last emotion stays put in my mind, as does the last image I ever saw with my human eyes: The face of my best friend. I can see every detail in front of me, his face seems to be the last real thing left in this place. But it is difficult to make sense of it. Was he there with me when I died? Did he try to save me? Did he die, too? In his eyes I can see the same pain I had been feeling, but not the same peace, even though I had tried to pass it on to him.

I kept his image in my mind every moment I spent being in this strange white place, however long that might have been. Those loving blue and golden eyes help me remember who I am, even when the mist around me threatens to carry me away, divide my being and turn me into nothing but floating particles that might have once been a mighty king.

I have no clue what I am now. I feel like a ghost, just a bodyless mind. Maybe this is what happens to people when they die. Is it heaven? Or is it hell? I would have to think hard to figure it out, recall everything that happened so long ago in that other world that had colours and people and adventures in it. But I'll admit, thinking hard proves to be difficult when you've got fog blinding your vision, spirits buzzing around your head and at least 80 pounds of armour dragging you down into the darkness.

Wait a minute... armour? Yes, no doubt, there is the familiar weight of the chain mail pulling at my shoulders and there is the heavy foot wear and the black leather gloves. I seem to have a body again! Hands! Hands to touch my face, my chest, my legs, everything that is me and isn't me, because I'm still dead.

I'm still here, I'm still _nowhere_.

But my eyes can finally really observe my surroundings, and there might not be solid ground underneath my feet, but I can finally turn around, move my arms, feel like _me_ again.

I try to grasp something in the fog, but my hands come out empty and cold, and yet, how wonderful to feel cold again, to feel anything at all. Wonderful, and frightening. For the first time, I open my mouth and release a croaky sound into the swirling mist around me. "Is someone out there?",

I ask. It's barely a whisper. I try again. "Can anyone here me?" The absence of an answer intensifies the terror I'm starting to feel. I want to know what's happening to me. There are so many questions. Am I dead or alive? Is something wrong with me? Shouldn't I go on, meet my father, the knights who died with me in that final battle? What were their names again? How much time has passed? Would I see different, unexpected faces on the other side? Guenevere? Merlin?

Merlin! He must be the one responsible for this state I'm in! Of course he is, he has magic! Who knows what kinds of spells he used on me to keep me from dying. He admitted himself that he has done it before. He didn't let me go where I was supposed to go!

"Merlin!", I crie out now, the annoyed undertone in my own voice shocking me a little.

But nothing. So I wait. I wait and I float, but this time I _feel_ and I _reflect_. I still don't know at which pace the time is passing, but I feel it and I _care_. My heart aches when I think about the past and my head aches when I think about the future. But I can't be in the present, because the present doesn't exist. I'm trapped and I'm terrified.


End file.
